A Quote by James Franklin Jeffrey
At the end of the day, it is what Donald Trump does or doesn't do as crises come up and as he tries to advance his agenda. He can hurt it on the margins by this kind of talk. That's my view. He could help it with a different approach to our allies and friends and our foes.
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Since Day 1 of his candidacy, Donald Trump has divided our country and threatened our democracy, attacked the middle class and alienated our allies. Under his administration, real people are being hurt.
Donald Trump talks to a lot of people. That doesn't change his ultimate views. If you go back on YouTube and you look at Donald Trump talking about trade in the 1980s, in the 1990s, this is the same person today. He's no different. So, while a lot of people like to talk and argue about who's talking to President Trump and who's influencing him to make decisions, it's Donald Trump. It's his agenda. It's always been his agenda. And it always will be his agenda.
These folks are telling Donald Trump that if he tries to move out on his plan to have a deportation squad, to harm Americans, and if he does - and if he has - he tries to do that, we're going to be there to stand and say no. We don't - we oppose his misogyny. We oppose his picking on people of different ethnic and religious groups.
I will not be voting for Donald Trump for president. This is not a decision I make lightly, for I am a lifelong Republican. But Donald Trump does not reflect historical Republican values nor the inclusive approach to governing that is critical to healing the divisions in our country.
Donald Trump has brought into his cabinet James "Mad Dog" Mattis, who is Secretary of Defense. A "mad dog" is a dangerous creature. And to think of sending such a man with such a reputation into Chicago after he, President Trump, has said to our mayor and the police department: "You all better get this violence thing straight or we'll have to help you do it." They're intending to come and search homes for weapons and kill those who would advance opposition, a slaughter.
Kissinger-type foreign policy is clearly, in my view, the proper tilt for us in the future, and he [Donald Trump] gets it. And some of our members, I guess, have been so deeply committed to the [George W.] Bush agenda, the neo-conservative agenda, that it's harder for them to acknowledge that. But I acknowledge it.
The question is are you loyal to the agenda that [Donald] Trump, that President-elect Trump has put forward in terms of his view of the world and the person to which the secretary of state would function.
We need to have strong allies. Our association and connection with our allies is essential to America's strength. We're the great nation that has allies, 42 allies and friends around the world.
Normally what happens in a new presidency is the president has a big agenda, and Congress is full of people with human weaknesses. And so the president indulges the human weaknesses of members of Congress in order to pass his agenda. This time it's the other way around. Donald Trump does not have much of an agenda. Congress burns with this intense Republican agenda and so does Congress that has to put up with the human weaknesses of the president in order to get a signature on the things it desperately wants to pass.
Donald Trump made it clear in that very interview that America will stand by our allies. We will uphold up our treaty obligations, including the mutual defense agreement that is NATO.
I think he tries to be nice. But he has absolutely zero self-awareness. None. Zip. So we see the public Donald Trump, the candidate, as being different than the in-person Donald Trump.
Our security depends on having good relationships with our allies. Donald Trump mainly shows contempt for them.
Donald Trump didn't have a polling operation until very late in his campaign. How did he know what to do? That the Ted Cruz people leaked their polls to Trump because they were looking forward to eliminating all the other rivals, clearing the way for a Cruz-Trump fight that they were certain Cruz would win. In the end, Cruz was the last man standing, it's true. If he had known at the beginning what he knew at the end, he might have thought twice. The Congressional Republican Party thought they could make Trump their tool to impose their very unpopular agenda. Instead, they became his tool.
As a longtime career guy, I like quiet diplomacy behind closed doors. This is not what we're getting with Donald Trump. At the end of the day, it's what America does, how people perceive us, in the long run, our reliability and such, and, thirdly, the personal relationships presidents have with their counterparts. The tweeting and some of the explosive conversations can hurt the third and can have an impact on the second, but, in the end, what we really should focus on is the policies. Some of them have been bad, the rollout of the immigration ban. Others, we have to wait and see.
Henceforth we will tackle our enemies that come face to face with us and we will not be stabbed in from behind by internal foes. To this end, we will arm the allies and comrades of the broad masses without giving respite to reactionaries, and avenge the blood of our comrades double - and triple - fold.
I denounced Donald Trump for not denouncing the kind of vitriol, the kind of violence that he has perpetrated with his angry rhetoric. And he knows exactly what he's doing. This is not the Donald Trump who denounced David Duke in 1991. This is a guy who's now soaking up this hate and his spilling it back out.
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